Friday, 25 January 2013

Happy new year! I'm not very good at keeping new year resolutions so I usually don't make them, but I'm going to make an exception here. I will try and make regular postings on this blog throughout 2013 and this this is my first. So far so good then!

Anyone living in Britain at the moment would have been hard pressed to miss the recent snow. Much as I like a bit of snow now and then, it couldn't have come at a worse time last Friday and led to the cancellation of a major music festival my two daughter's were performing at that evening.

Tree In Snow, North Somerset

I had to drive my son to school along an unusually empty A38 main road between Bristol and Taunton that morning and I had brought a digital camera along in case I came across anything interesting. A full blown expedition in the snow was off the cards today because I had to get my daughters and all their gear to the festival in Bristol later. I would have to make do with a short excursion on my way home.

I had just parked up when I received the disappointing news that the festival had been cancelled because the venue was not safely accessible. It couldn't be helped but I knew a lot of blood, sweat and tears had gone into the festival and suddenly my enthusiasm for the snow was gone. I wanted to drive straight home but sulking at home wasn't going to change anything so I forced myself to venture outside to find an image.

There's a piece of common land along this stretch of road that I drive past almost every day. I've never thought of it as interesting and have, until recently, ignored it. Since starting to look for interesting aspects to familiar local locations I have been paying this land a little more attention. I knew that this tree stood on it's own and I had been waiting for conditions that would transform it into a worthwhile image. Today's snow might just be what I was waiting for so I made my way over to the tree to take a look.

The continuing heavy snowfall had reduced visibility and apart from the feint outline of trees in the distance the landscape was almost featureless which helped isolate the tree. Perfect. Being careful not to place any footprints in the image, I walked around looking for the best viewpoint. As it turned out the best viewpoint was from the direction I had approached the tree from.

I could claim I worked for hours in the freezing conditions to make this image but the simple truth is this was one that that nature just seemed to hand over to me that morning without any resistance. A small gift that went a little way to make up for my disappointment. Sometimes life has a way of compensating like that. Of course we make our own luck and I had not paid any attention to this location before then perhaps I would not have seen this image at all. Maybe nature only rewards when reward is due.

I am a Somerset based photographer with a passion for the countryside. I specialise in landscapes and seascapes of the West Country of England but my work takes me to many other areas of the UK including South Wales and The Lake District.
My images have been used in books, magazines, travel guides, wall art, greetings cards, calendars and more around the world and I have written a number of articles for the photographic press.
I exclusively use professional digital cameras for my work. However, until recently I used transparency film and medium format and 5x4 large format view cameras. Using the large format camera taught me to take a more thoughtful and methodical approach to making landscape images which enables me to immerse myself in the landscape.